Founded by Michael Angelakos of passion pit, The Wishart Group develops programs and services that better serve and promote the mental, physical, and creative well-being of artists.

Our Mission

The Wishart Group is an artist-led company dedicated to focusing on health and wellness in making professional music and art a viable and sustainable career for a vastly expanded group of people.

Protecting the wellbeing of people, whether on a public or private level, is a powerful expression of self-care and empathy, and is not just logical -- it is crucial to our near and distant future. It is also crucial to the future of industries we rely on, including the arts. Promoting the wellbeing of artists should not be introduced to the media industries as a commercial task. The Wishart Group’s multiple entities bring together scientists, researchers, advocates, lobbyists, and more to promote causes that underlie artists wellbeing

Our primary goal is to align artists with the leading scientists and advocates in key areas to capture public attention and direct that attention to specific action.

"I simply didn’t realise how little we understand that mental health is not a benefit, but a human right."

Our Program Goals

Advocacy

Build a community of musicians, supporters, and media who can advocate about mental health safely and knowledgeably, to minimize stigma in the space.

Advocacy creation for mental health, neuroscience and new forms of therapeutic treatments for mental illness from non-traditional inputs.

Science

Creating unique funding opportunities for science in mental health research and beyond.

Piloting a consortium to collect and share data from artists with other sectors to accelerate scientific discovery.

Resources

Developing and implementing resource packages to provide innovative forms of healthcare for artists.

Aligning brands and corporations to make existing resources affordable and accessible for artists.

Generate public funding for the arts and music.

Our Team

Michael Angelakos

Founder & Program Director

Michael Angelakos is a musician, mental health advocate and multimedia artist, best known for his work as Passion Pit. He founded The Wishart Group, to make professional music and art a viable and sustainable career, by developing programs and services that better serve and promote the mental, physical, and creative well-being of artists. As Program Director of The Wishart Group, Michael conceives and facilitates these programs for the non-profit and its for-profit entities, based on his experience & relationships within the music industry.

Bianca Caampued

Co-Founder & Executive Director

As Co-Founder & Executive Director for The Wishart Group non-profit, Bianca leads business development, partnerships & collaborations, media relations, and event opportunities. She is a mental health advocate in the business and entrepreneurship space. Outside of Wishart, she is the co-founder & Creative Director of Small GIrls PR, a bi-coastal digital PR agency founded in 2010. Bianca has been featured in outlets like WWD, Forbes, Marie Claire, and Well & Good.

David Haggerty, MSc.

Co-Founder & Director of Operations

David Haggerty is a co-founder at The Wishart Group and a neuroscience PhD student at Indiana University School of Medicine. He works with rats to understand why humans are so anxious, and with humans to learn how they can be less like anxious rats. As Operations Director for The Wishart Group, he leads program development and builds empirically-validated campaigns that synthesize scientific disciplines through media and cultural outputs.

Michael F. Wells, Ph.D.

Founding Partner & Officer

Michael Wells is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of Harvard & MIT. Michael F. Wells's work focuses on using human stem cells to study neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diseases, such as autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.